2010: Pike River Mine Disaster
November 21, 2021
By AHNZ
Today in history, at 3:44 pm on 19 November 2010, a methane explosion was ignited at the Pike River Mine near Greymouth. Usual historical procedure would now involve miners rescuing and recovering any dead and it was assumed this would now occur.
However, workmates and family were told to be quiet and wait. The mine had not collapsed and had air flowing through it. Something about this time in our history caused all concerned to restrain their natural desire to mourn or even save lives in favor of privileging the check boxes of bureaucrat’s clipboards.
Those who waited were rewarded after 5 days, 24/Nov, with a second explosion after which the Clipboard People declared that nobody could have survived that. The hope that had been denied was now to be abandoned.
The State now laundered some $50,000,000 of taxpayer money prolonging and repeating the same torturous treatment. National 5.0 treated itself to a Royal Commission and Labour 6.0 created the Pike River Recovery Agency before shutting up shop without contributing anything of substance.
National 5.0 did take the opportunity of unease and confusion to re-organise and re-brand the bureaucracy. This included changing the name of the Occupational Safety and Health Service (OSH) to Worksafe New Zealand. Occupational safety and health in New Zealand had previously been reset by the National 4.0 with their Health and Safety and Employment Act (1992) but picked at and amended by Labour 6.0. It was time to ‘re-capture the flag’ for John Key’s Ministry and the Pike River Disaster helped lubricate the legislative and public relations passage. 
In 2021 the government tried to put their decade-long sideshow to bed and seal up the mine but the local community stopped them using protest action. A fresh, local-driven, assay was undertaken using 10cm diameter bore holes which quickly revealed “crystal clear” pictures of 2 or 3 of the dead miners who had clearly lived long enough to apply their own emergency breathers.
The New Zealand Police have these photos but refuse to share them with the group is is the moral and legal principal in this case: the families. Why? Because sharing crystal clear images with people who have sought them for over 11 years is their way of showing “respect.”
“The images were taken late last week from a new borehole in the area furthest away from what had then been the entrance to the mine. Police have said the images would not be released publicly out of respect to the families.” 18/11/2021, Stuff news
So, the Pike River saga is far from over and lessons learned hardly begun.
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Image ref. Pike River Memorial, AHNZ Archive (2020)
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